Solitary Bygone
by CelticDaemonWitch
Summary: Hinata is not immune to nightmares. Even in the middle of the day. [implied HinaNeji]


((A/N: Yaaaay! First Naruto fic for me! To be honest, I'm quite proud of it. Inspired by and dedicated to (can I do that?) Sunfreak and Lily Day, who sport some of the most gorgeous Naruto one-shots I have ever read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not own Naruto. I do not -- this is a recording with no off switch. But, I will happily pull the plug... if you hand over Naruto and everybody in it...

Pairing(s): Neji/Hinata (and some Naruto/Sasuke, Ino/Lee, and Iruka/Kakashi if you know where to look for it XD)

WARNING!: I have never read a single page of the manga, or watched a single episode of the anime. Everything I know about Naruto comes from reading fanfiction. Sooo... if you're a kind of person who can't stand ignorance... please go away XD))

Solitary Bygone

a short story

Hinata knows what it's like to be alone. To be surrounded by people who look just like her, but still be alone.

Hinata knows what it's like to never be enough. To be of as strong of Hyuuga blood as they could want, but still not be enough.

Hinata knows what it's like to love. To be encompassed in a warm glow that made everything else unbecoming and almost boring, to float on a cloud that drifted out of reach of those that had viewed her as below them.

The Hyuuga were never going to accept her. They had Hanabi for that.

She was never going to be enough to them. They had Hanabi for that.

But she would always be in love.

Her hands were shaking. So hard, in fact, that she was having trouble opening the drawer under the bathroom sink. No longer positioned on its rollers, it was a stubborn enough drawer on any given day, but she was having trouble just grasping the handle today, much less tug it open. It never crossed her mind to curse at it, for that wasn't going to help anything, and she wasn't that kind of person anyway. All she wanted was a hairbrush. Was that too much to ask for?

At the same time that Naruto had become the Sixth Hokage of Konoha, a rather memorable eventful already several years in the past, Hinata -- with the love of her life at her side -- had timidly asked her father permissision to get married.

When he heard about it, and because he was spontaneous like that, Naruto tracked down the suddenly homeless Hinata and offered her his cheap apartment, which he and Sasuke were predictably moving out of.

Although it was a shoddy place, and nothing like the impeccably clean and frighteningly ornate mansion she had come from, it had grown on the woman. With a little effort and a little love, she had turned it into her home.

And, much to the exasperation of the Hyuuga clan, when Naruto gleefully signed the marriage liscence, it had then become their home.

The hairbrush slipped from her hand, tumbling to the yellowing tiles with a sharp clatter. Brow furrowed in almost impercievable concern, he turned stark white eyes to her, eyes that rarely betrayed emotion to those who didn't know what to look for, eyes so much like hers.

"S-sorry," she whispered, as she stooped to retrieve the offending object.

With hands that were no less calm, she gingerly pulled his ponytail loose, and his dark waves of ebony hair tumbled extravagantly down his back, the glossy locks folding over each other like a child's fingers crossing themselves hopefully. And as she had done numerous times before, she began to run the brush through those coils of hair, so familiar to her, because they were hers too.

Hinata remembers the year following her marriage, his and her emancipation from the meticulously groomed fingers of the Hyuuga clan. It was like being told it was time for a break after repititive hours of cold and cruel training. It was a freedom that was so easy to get giddy on, so easy to just expand and grow and perfect themselves on.

She remembers how they had celebrated when she landed her first good paying job in the Hokage's office, and how widely they had grinned when he finally got promoted to Anbu.

They had been almost childish in their joviality at being free to do what they pleased without the dissaproving breath of the Hyuuga down their necks.

They might have been childish about their liberty, but they were childlike in their love.

Suddenly, Hinata couldn't take it anymore. Knees quivering like Jell-O, she dropped the brush into the bathroom sink and yanked the toilet seat down before collapsing on top of it. Melancholy rolled up her shoulders, making her body heave with surpressed sobs as she unceremoniously dropped her forehead onto the bathroom counter.

She cried for the things she couldn't have changed. For Ino and Lee's marriage that crumbled and fell apart, leaving both parties permenantly embittered. For Orochimaru's corruption of Sasuke that almost resulted in the Leaf village going to war with the Sound, yet still destroyed any shred of credibility the common people had for the last Uchiha. For Iruka's terminal disease, and Kakashi's steady decline into alcoholism because of it.

For the Anbu team that never came back.

Hands feathered down on top of her head, stroking her scant locks of hair as reassuringly as they could. Hands that didn't judge her for what she wasn't, hands that didn't judge her for her unexceptional ninja skills, hands that didn't judge her beyond what she was.

The small child who sat on the bathroom counter next to her, with black hair and white eyes and hands so small they could be mistaken for a fairy's, who looked so much like the father he'd never seen, said just one word.

"Mama."

And even through the tears and the downcast memories, Hinata smiled.

She knew what it was like to love.

((In case you didn't get that the first time around, Hinata and Neji got married, he got promoted to Anbu, and then got killed in a mission before their baby was born.

Read and review! ... or flame, if you feel the need...))


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